This reading year has been a fantastic one for me - so many great books! And I am ending it on a doooooozy here. I knew I would be interested in Period because, duh, it's literally my job to talk about menstruation and reproductive health. But this was so much more than I had expected it to be. Literally from the first page of the Introduction, I was hooked. I knew immediately I would love it and needed it for myself...and I returned the library book and ordered my own copy that very day. (Thanks, too, to Libro.fm for the ALC, which I listened to alongside having my personal copy on hand.) I have also, since, recommended it to everyone I work with. Yup - I'm *that* coworker. 

 

Based on the title, Period: The Real Story of Menstruation, you really shouldn't need a blurb to tell you what this book is about. But just in case, here is the one-liner from Goodreads: "A bold and revolutionary perspective on the science and cultural history of menstruation." And that is absolutely on point. Despite the fact that half the world experiences a version of the menstrual cycle and menstruation, there is a real dearth of information and knowledge about it - both scientifically/medically and socially - and the stigma related to it really begs belief considering the breadth of its impact. In this book Clancy "counters the false theories that have long defined the study of the uterus, exposing the eugenic history of gynecology while providing an intersectional feminist perspective on menstruation science." There is a mix of science/medicine, anthropological research, personal stories, interviews and more that come together to give the reader a nuanced and reframed look at the period, as well as an intersectional and expansive (and hopeful!) set of suggestions/ideas for what a better future could look like for those who menstruate. 

 

This review is about to be gushing AF, so buckle up. The actively intersectional feminist and anti-racist and gender inclusive language and unpacking/re-learning of the reality and science of those who menstruate is…everything. It's an absolutely stunning, imperative, move against the status quo. This begins from the very start, as Clancy sets up terminology - how she’ll use it and what the limitations/biases are with certain descriptors/categorizers. And continues as she heads off easy-to-make assumptions and challenging any potential misinterpretations before they even arise, including explaining why she’s in a position to have to get political instead of “just” doing/sharing science. I could not have loved it more. Clancy follows this up by making radical inclusivity the cornerstone of each aspect of menstruation she addresses, from different historical and cultural and religious beliefs/practices to gender diverse perspectives on wanting/not wanting to menstruate to differing reproductive goals to addressing head on the harm of issues like fatphobia and disability unfriendly workplaces/lifestyles that affect us all (thanks to Rebekah Taussig's Sitting Pretty and Heath Fogg Davis' Beyond Trans: Does Gender Matter? for my previous introduction to concepts of universal design that is central here). Similarly, the consistent and head-on interrogation of the racist history of anthropology and eugenics is *standing ovation.* The overall intertwining of the biological and social in this examination of the way we understand and experience menstruation (and femininity) is communicated gorgeously. My goodnesssss. (A small note here: I felt that the book moved more towards a Western Hemisphere-focus as it goes, which I assume due to research availability in part, and mostly because that’s where the author is most affected and where the most power to create a new perspective lies for her. But just as far as a broad-speaking approach goes, I felt that was worth mentioning.) 

 

While all of that is general praise for the perspective and presentation of the information in this book, I also have a few specific things that stood out that I'd like to mention. I so appreciated seeing this scientific debunking of the idea of “normal” periods, not as a primary goal, but as a natural effect of the examination of this topic. What an opening of perspective and mind, to consider that we all lead lives too differently to settle on a “normal” period definition. And really, I loveddddd to see the debunking of all the bullshit limitations on women and what they can/can’t do because of beliefs about reproduction and menstruation (just like everything else in the world, promoted incorrectly to protect the white cis patriarchal power). 

 

In a similar vein, there was just a questioning of so many frameworks, and how they are so deeply biased towards a (Western) white cis male view, that was well done. (As an example, studies about how exercise and other stress affects menstruation never - til recently - looking at the basic daily responsibilities of women as they work domestically as a form of “exercise.”) This plays out in a number of ways, and Clancy's absolutely clear finger pointing at structural reasons as causes for why menstrual complications occur, in line with every other health study, while we continue to try to treat symptoms is important, infuriatingly not a surprise, and a gorgeous first time that I’ve ever seen it applied in this way (while acknowledging the best intentions of the current practices aimed at helping, she is still so sanguinely clear that it won’t ever be enough). Honestly, the fact that menstruation is both seen as too natural/normal to deserve money spent on it (in suppressing, learning about, managing or concealing it, based on personal preference, or other ways) to make it safer and more comfortable and easier to tolerate for a larger number of people WHILE ALSO seen as too gross/taboo to talk about and teach [youth] about is honestly ridiculous. I simply do not understand how more people don’t recognize that for what it is. I mean, for something that affects over half the population roughly monthly for a major chunk of their lives...it's unbelievable. 

 

Ok. back to other things I loved. Clancy's presentation of the pathology of fatness and how it’s used to “explain” or blame reproductive abnormalities as an unfounded scientific/medical practice was so interesting and important for perspective shifting. She also looks at how immune and psychosocial stressors, just like physical/energy stressors, can affect menstruation. And I mean, it's something that in practice I know, but in mechanism here, I learned a lot. Then, taking everything up to that point, and looking at stressors outside of exercise (based on cortisol levels) and interpreting those spikes in the context of where in the cycle a person is, and if that affects the cycle itself or if the cycle point affects the experience of the stress spike... entire conversation was straight up fascinating. Hot damn. And to repeat myself (#sorrynotsorry), I just loved how well all that research and data is compiled here in conversation with sexism and racism and medical bias/disbelief. It's such an important intersection and one that is just recently getting any kind of research traction (as small as it is). 

 

Ok, and then this last chapter, on the future of menstruation and reframing how we think of it to create spaces and options that work for more people is beautiful and, I wish, felt less like a utopia option that’s impossibly out of reach. The conversation about hormonal birth control options and how they’re pushed and patient bodily autonomy/choice and efficacy and medical/pharmaceutical preferences (and dismissal of side effects/insertion pain, because they’re effective and that’s worth it and these are the only options and what choice is there really, then, for women who want that protection?) is really necessary, completely relatable (to this reader), and, of course, frustrating AF. ANd ok, but as a fantasy and sci-fi reader, who loves when periods are addressed in those spaces, that look at menstruation in speculative fiction was wonderful. What a great conceptual imagining of different ways to handle a period/reproduction in the ways only imagination can…let’s stay that unique and creative and talk more about how imagination can inform real life perspectives please! 

 

Friends, I will NEVER be over this book and I will NEVER stop recommending it. Clancy deeply explores this misunderstood and under-understood reproductive function and connects it to so many other intersectional feminist and racist issues: environmentally, health wise, systemically, etc. It’s intertwined from an abolitionist and disability and queer inclusive perspective that freeing one frees us all. I was honestly so impressed with the breadth. And while in some cases I’d have liked more depth in those aspects, the length of the book would then have been obscene, and Clancy addresses it by name-dropping and recommending other activist’s work for anyone who wants more, while focusing more on the anthropologic and medical research that is her speciality. I will say it one more time: everyone should read this, menstruating or not, immediately. 

 

“I promise that this book is full of science. It’s also full of the history and systems at play that complicate the ability of menstruating people to get good information about their own bodies, ask their own questions, and be the ones setting the research agenda.” 

 

“Periods themselves are not necessarily the culprit, or at least they wouldn’t be under different conditions, and giving people who menstruate more supposedly sanitary options doesn’t help nearly as much as would simply giving back the resources we took during centuries of extraction and theft.” 

 

“We need to imagine a future where we acknowledge that we are humans with bodies that need attention and love; that the needs of bodies are all different; that our minds are housed in these bodies and are better off when we don’t ignore the house. More than self-care or body positivity, I am advocating for the radical (but not new or original) idea that humans deserve dignity and that dignity means not only accommodating but celebrating and noticing all people.” 

 

 “As we have destigmatized menstruation by focusing on the science, we have also developed tendency to describe menstruation almost entirely with negative symptomology. […] If all we ever learn is that menstrual cycles make us hormonal, irritable, bloated, angry, depressed, anxious, or in pain, is it any wonder that’s the primary way many of us perceive our experiences?” 

 

“Despite the prevailing cultural association between femininity and being emotional and out of control, femme people are constantly holding ourselves in check. Ultimate femininity, as well as the ability to fit into spaces where everyone cares about your mind and no on about your body, is about passing as not menstruating.” 

 

“Who made the world we live in? Who benefits from it being the way it is? And what are out alternatives?”